Liberals Celebrate Kirk Assassination on Social Media, 'Love' Texts from Assassin to Boyfriend & ...

Welcome, it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Week in Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, media and social media, why are they not coming out condemning those who are celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk? In fact, they're allowing it to happen. So what does this say about America? We're going to break that down. Also, we have the text messages now from the assassin to his roommate, transgendered lover. What was said in there that's so revealing? That in a moment. And finally, Kash Patel and Senator Cruz on naming Antifa a terrorist organization and what this means moving forward. It's the Week in Review and it starts right now. I go back to this. How many? I mean, we watched one of our own be assassinated. Did any cities get burned down? No. Are there any police officers that were attacked? No. Was there any assaults on people because they were angry? No. And yet they're mad. I love this headline from the Daily Beast, which if you don't know what that is, a hardcore liberal propaganda machine that has an incredible amount of influence in the left. Their headline yesterday, 10.05 a.m., keyboard warriors grieving this week's assassination of self-annointed champion of quote unquote free speech, Charlie Kirk, have launched an online campaign to get anyone who criticizes him fired from their jobs. Their sub headline is free speech crazed. MAGA Karens go full cancel culture on Kirk critics. No, let's be clear about the people we are exposing. It's people. They weren't criticizing. Try Kirk. They were they were celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk and our major positions of power at universities and other jobs or things like we mentioned earlier where they refuse to put up to print out a piece of paper. For goodness sakes. Yeah. But Ben, let me make two distinctions that are important because it's easy to get these confused. Number one, let's talk free speech. Yes. In the United States, the First Amendment gives you the right to speech, to speak and not to be criminally prosecuted for it. So you can say the most horrible, hateful things. You do have a First Amendment right to say unbelievably horrible, hateful things. You can say that you are celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk or anyone else in the First Amendment will protect your ability to do so, which means the government cannot come prosecute you and put you in jail for saying that the First Amendment does not mean that you are immune from the consequences of your speech. And if you say things that are horrible and hateful, it is not uncommon for someone to be terminated. So, for example, at a university, if a student goes and decides to dress in a white robe as a Klansman and burn a cross and say that we should murder African-American students, I guarantee you that student will be expelled from school. Now, you can't prosecute him. He has a First Amendment right to do that. So that is not a criminal offense to do that. Correct. But the university should absolutely expel him because of just how noxious those views are. The same is true here when you have teachers that are celebrating cold-blooded murder. There are consequences for that. But that's a distinction. I'll point out also the president of the Oxford Union who debated Charlie Kirk and is this vicious leftist. He put out a tweet celebrating, uh, let's effing go, he said when Charlie Kirk was shot. This is a guy who literally had one-on-one debated against Charlie Kirk. And he is the incoming president of the Oxford Union, which pretentiously describes itself as the world's greatest debating society. Look, in my view, this individual ought to be expelled from Oxford for the same reason you would expel him if he were a Klansman burning a cross and saying, let's murder black students. Now, the United Kingdom does not have the same First Amendment that applies to it the way the United States does. So actually, in England, if he said that, he might well be criminally prosecuted. I don't agree with criminally prosecuting speech. But the First Amendment does not give you a get-out-of-jail-free pass. Look, I promise you, any one of you in your jobs, if you go in and tell your boss, go screw yourself. Yeah, you're going to get fired. You will get fired. You have a First Amendment right to say so. But he also has a right to terminate you. But let me say, secondly, on this both-sides-ism. The media really wants to say, gosh, political violence, it's a problem that just occurs everywhere. No, right now, it is heavily concentrated on the left. And the left has normalized political violence. We saw two separate assassination attempts of Donald Trump. We saw this tragically successful assassination of Charlie Kirk. We saw, for a year, Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots. And I want to read you some polling results that were done last year. And people were asked, would it be justified to murder Elon Musk, and would it be justified to murder Donald Trump? And those who were self-described left-of-center, 50.2% said it would be justified to murder Elon Musk, and 56% said it would be justified to murder Donald Trump. That is, and by the way, the right-of-center numbers were 14.3% and 20.3%. So I wish all those numbers were zero, but this is a problem on the left. This is a problem when you define your opponent as Hitler, Nazi, evil, fascist. That is a permission structure to then say violence is an appropriate response. And we need to see Democrats having the courage to say, enough is enough. Look, Bill Maher did a great job where he, in his monologue, he said, let's be clear, Donald Trump is not Hitler. Stop saying that. Stop saying it. Exactly. Well, and I think now they're realizing that using the words fascist and Hitler and these types of things has desensitized people and advocated and allowed for this type of violence to become reality, where the big question people are asking is, what's next? I do want to say one thing that I think I've found incredibly comforting is seeing how many young people are at colleges this weekend over college football, we're putting up signs saying that they are Charlie Kirk. The number of people that are following him now on Instagram exploded by, I'm not, I don't think I'm wrong. I think it's millions of people now who are following him. I think it is likely that more people have listened to Charlie Kirk speak in the last week than did in the entirety of his life. Yeah. And that's the silver lining. His Christian testimony has become so powerful, I will say, his wife, Erica, the speech she gave this week reduced me to tears. It was beautiful. God's anointing was upon her as she did that. And a lot of people who had never clicked on and watched Charlie Kirk say anything this week did so and said, hey, who is this guy that touched so many people? I think a lot of people chose to open their Bible and start reading their Bible. A lot of people chose to go to church. That is a great thing. That is something I hope and believe we're going to see a lot more of. And let me say, in subsequent podcasts, we're going to talk about what's coming next. And here's one of the most important things that I am urging the President, the Department of Justice, the FBI to do, which is follow the money. Follow the money of everyone that is pushing this leftist hatred, that is pushing this violence. There is real money that is going into these riots on campus, that is going into funding Antifa, that is going into funding Black Lives Matter. And this is not just one isolated lunatic in Utah. We need to follow the money behind the radicalization that is leading to people being so twisted and engaging in these horrific acts of violence. Now if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now on to story number two. I want to move to the text messages that have come out, and it's very interesting to see all of the evidence that is now we are seeing, the transparency of these text messages that were between the shooter and his transgender boyfriend. And I also want to say, there are some people that are saying, oh, you're taking this hook, line, and sinker. I don't know if they planned the text messages. I don't know if this was him trying to protect the roommate and act like the roommate knew nothing about it. I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of that. But what was shocking about this is how the media decided to play it and romanticize their relationship through the text messages in the weirdest, creepiest way I've ever seen the mainstream media do this. Yeah, look, I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to read you these text messages because they're horrifying, but it makes clear there is no doubt that this murderer is guilty. And by the way, there is a reason I won't say the murderer's name. Because anyone who engages in a mass murder and horrific crime like this, part of the reason they do this is they want to be famous. I don't repeat these bastards' names. I will call them the murderer or the assassin or the defendant, but I will not say his name. But the murderer and his boyfriend were exchanging texts and the murderer left under a keyboard in their apartment a note saying that he had the opportunity to kill Charlie Kirk and he took it. And his boyfriend, who is a man who is transgender and transitioning to be a woman, responded what? With like a whole bunch of question marks. And you're joking, right? And here's the exchange. The murderer says, I'm still okay, my love, but I'm stuck in Orem for a little while longer. Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but I got to grab my rifle still. To be honest, I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I'm sorry to involve you. Boyfriend, you weren't the one who did it, right? Four question marks. Murderer, I am. I'm sorry. Boyfriend, I thought they caught the person. Murderer, no, they grabbed some crazy old dude, then interrogated someone in similar clothing. I had planned to grab my rifle from the drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down. It's quiet almost enough to get out, but there's one vehicle lingering. Boyfriend, why? Murderer, why did I do it? Boyfriend, yeah. Murderer, I've had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. If I'm able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven't seen anything about them finding it. Boyfriend, how long have you been planning this? Murderer, a bit over a week, I believe. I can get close to it, but there is a squad car parked by it. I think they already swept the spot, but I don't want to chance it. Murderer, I wish I had circled back and grabbed it as soon as I got to my vehicle. I'm worried what my old man would do if I didn't bring back grandpa's rifle. I don't know if it had a serial number, but it wouldn't trace to me. I worry about prints I had to leave in a bush where I changed outfits. Didn't have the ability or time to bring it with. I might have to abandon it and hope they don't find prints. How the F will I explain losing it to my old man? Only thing I left was the rifle wrapped in a towel. Remember how I was engraving bullets? The F-ing messages are mostly a big meme. If I see notices bulges UWU on Fox News, I might have a stroke. All right, I'm gonna have to leave it. That really F-ing sucks. Those are the text exchanges. Now, number one, reading those text exchanges, it is 100% clear. It's not 99%. It's not 98%. It's 100% clear. This defendant is the murderer. He is the assassin. He is confessing to his boyfriend, I did it. He is confessing details of the crime that only the murderer would know. He will be convicted. He was charged today. He will be convicted. But he is guilty today. Based on that evidence, it is 100% certain he is guilty. And his motive is clear. Caitlyn Collins and CNN and MSNBC, they said, we don't know the motive. Maybe he just disliked tall people. Maybe he was just firing his gun in celebration and it accidentally hit the throat of somebody. Accidentally somebody that was there excited just to see Charlie Kirk and it went off randomly. Like the level of, and by the way, an idiot commentator at MSNBC said, maybe it was a supporter of Charlie Kirk firing his gun in celebration. Now, thankfully, that commentator got fired for that idiocy. But the motive is absolutely clear. He hated Charlie Kirk. He's a left wing Antifa activist. He's a transgender activist. He is sleeping with a transgender man who is transitioning to be a woman. And so the motive, there's no ambiguity, but CNN hates that motive. They cannot admit that's what happened. My goodness, that would undermine their entire political agenda. So they desperately have to say the motive is unclear. By the way, Caitlyn Collins said repeatedly, well, law enforcement hasn't laid out the motive. Yes, they have. They repeatedly laid out the motive. They said it's a left wing activist who's radicalized. The bullets had carved on them Antifa and transgender messages. I mean, this is not subtle. He was not hiding his motive. But I have to say, as repulsive as CNN's reaction was, ABC's was worse. I want you to listen- Way worse, way worse. Like, you can't overstate it. Okay, I want you to listen to ABC News' reaction to this text exchange between the murderer and his transgender boyfriend. Here, give a listen. We have seen an alleged murder with such specific text messages about the alleged murder weapon, where it was hidden, how it was placed, what was on it. But also, it was very touching in a way that I think many of us didn't expect. A very intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect's roommate and the suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who was transitioning, calling him my love, and I want to protect you, my love. So it was this duality of someone who the attorney said not only jeopardized the life of Charlie Kirk and the crowd, but was doing it in front of children, which is one of the aggravating circumstances of this case. And on the other hand, he was, you know, speaking so lovingly about his partner. So a very interesting and, as Pierre said, riveting press conference, David. I love how they say it's a riveting press conference, Senator. It's riveting. And just, you know, he referred to him as my love. And this is just so sweet and sincere. It's like, what in the world are you guys doing over there at ABC News with your special report live coverage? Touching and loving. Oh, these text messages. I murdered this person for you. Oh, my love. Pitter patter, pitter patter. That is repulsive. It is repulsive that ABC News is gushing over this psychopathic murderer. And ABC News. Oh, they're touching and sweet text messages. He is confessing to a deliberate murder because he hates what somebody is saying. He murdered a husband. He murdered a father of two little kids, one boy, one girl. And ABC News thinks it's so sweet that he confessed to his transgender boyfriend, which, of course, they call his roommate, even though he's calling him my love. Like, there's no ambiguity when you call someone my love what exactly the relationship is. But ABC News cannot admit to them it is sweet and beautiful. This radical leftist murdering Charlie Kirk. I got I got a message for you guys. It's not sweet and it's not beautiful. Yeah. By the way, side note on this. I don't know if you knew this, but 10 minutes after that, like the Internet exploded over it. He went back on and doubled down on it and basically did the same thing again. I'm not backing down from this. I think it's genuine and sweet and sincere and a love story. You know, what a romantic Romeo and Juliet story. You know, psycho leftist murderer killing people because he's filled with hate. I can't think of anything more beautiful than that. Certain certainly ABC News is very persuasive in that regard. Yeah, it'll be the face of the network before you know it. God help us. Did he really double down? Did he really go back on air and do it again? Yeah. Yes. Do you want to hear it? Because I've got it. This is Matt Gutman. I haven't heard this, so play it for us. So this is 10 minutes after he said on ABC News Live. It's heartbreaking on so many levels. Obviously, Charlie Kirk was murdered brutally in front of a crowd of thousands. On the other hand, there is this duality of every portrait of a, again, his exact words of a very like, this is like a love story. Loving, touching. Yeah, touching. So this is 10 minutes later after the Internet. And I have no doubt that he knew that there was a problem, right? So he knew there was an issue. 100%. Here he is 10 minutes later. It is. It's heartbreaking on so many levels, Kira. Obviously, Charlie Kirk was murdered brutally in front of a crowd of thousands of people who watched him being shot through the neck and then essentially bleed out in front of them. And I think one of the things that the attorney here made a very fine point about is that a lot of these charges, seven charges, were aggravated because children were present. Children witnessed this. Children were put in harm's way. And that was something that obviously is aggravating here. And that's one of the reasons that the suspect, in addition to the alleged murder being political in nature, is facing the death penalty. They're going for the death penalty. And on the other hand, there is this duality of a very, a portrait of a very human person, a very human experience from this entire family. As you mentioned it, the mother essentially discovered that it was her son who had done this. The kid who had got a 34 out of 36 on the ACT's, who had a 4.0, who got a full ride to college here. That that kid was the one who allegedly perpetrated. She saw those pictures and said, identified him essentially. And then those text messages. And I don't think I've ever experienced a press conference in which we've read text messages that are A, so fulsome, so robust, so apparently, allegedly self-incriminating. And yet, on the other hand, so touching, right? With the suspect reaching out to his roommate, who is allegedly his boyfriend, who we understand, you know, identified as male at birth, now identifies as female. And the terminology he used, he was trying to protect him. He kept calling him, my love, my reason for doing this is to protect you, you know, but also asking him to delete the messages and not speak to law enforcement. So there's this heartbreaking duality that we're seeing very tragically playing out. If that's not doubling down, I don't know what is. Fulsome, touching, loving. It is. Heartbreaking. Look, I don't know who this particular reporter is, but I will say it says something that this speaks to him in such a touching, moving way. I see depraved maniacs who just committed cold-blooded murder, and his boyfriend is not saying, dear God, what the hell did you do? He's just like, oh, oh, it was you, okay. The boyfriend never said there's anything wrong with murdering Charlie Kirk. He was perfectly fine with it. There ain't nothing touching about these two psychopaths reveling in their cold-blooded murder, and for ABC to think it is, that really tells you how messed up ABC is. As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. Senator, I want to get to something else that happened earlier this week, and that was the questioning of the FBI director, Cash Patel. You had the opportunity to talk with Cash on a number of different issues. Obviously, one of them that was in front of mind was the assassination of our friend Charlie Kirk. Well, absolutely. So this week, Cash Patel, the director of the FBI, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I took the opportunity to question him on a number of topics, but front and center to urge Cash Patel to follow the money and, in particular, to go after Antifa and to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization. Here's the exchange Cash and I had. Give a listen. I want to encourage you in the course of this investigation, absolutely go after anyone who aided and abetted, but I want to more broadly encourage you, follow the money. The violence we are seeing is not purely organic. There is, I believe, significant money that is spreading dissension that is spreading violence. Antifa. Do you believe Antifa is a terrorist organization? I believe Antifa is associated with a lot of violence in this country as to its designation. I'll leave that to the appropriate authorities. So I would encourage the administration to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization, to go systematically after Antifa. They've committed acts of violence all over the country. And the shell casings have multiple references to slogans that Antifa has popularized. I believe there is considerable money funding it. I would note that I've introduced legislation called the Stop Funders Act. Stop Funders Act would add rioting to the list of predicate offenses under RICO. I believe the money should be should be tracked and prosecuted under RICO. And both the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of a couple of years ago, and the pro-open border riots in Los Angeles and other cities of this past year. I believe there was significant money behind those riots. I'm not the only person who noticed at the anti-Semitic protests and violent protests on college campuses that many of the tents all matched. And so I would ask, would it aid your ability to prosecute these matters if Congress passed into law the Stop Funders Act and if rioting was added to the list of predicate offenses for RICO? Yes. Talk to me about the efforts of the FBI to go after the funders of the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses, the pro-open border protests in cities, and potential LGBT violence. Talk to me about the efforts to go after the money of those who are funding and promoting violence. As I've always said, Senator, money doesn't lie. We've been following the money. And so that's what we're doing, issuing lawful process to organizations involved with criminal activity because the money's got to come from somewhere and it has to be funded somehow. So we have extensive investigations ongoing into numerous organizations that are related to violent criminal activity. Cutting off the money will make America much safer. And that is the core job of the FBI. And I thank you for doing your job. Now, you look at what you just said there in the back and forth, Senator, and this turned very quickly into a new policy from the Trump administration as well. That is the best news coming out of this. Absolutely. So this testimony was on Tuesday. The very next day, President Trump announced he was doing what I was calling for, which is designating Antifa as a terrorist organization. I'm going to read to you from Fox News. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he will designate Antifa, a left-wing activist group, a major terrorist organization. Trump described the group as, quote, a sick, dangerous, radical left disaster in a truth social announcement. The president added that he will be strongly recommending that those funding Antifa be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. The announcement comes just days after Trump said he would 100 percent consider the designation. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Monday, Trump accused Antifa participants of being, quote, professional agitators in response to the administration's recent crackdown on illegal immigration. Quote, Antifa is terrible, the president said. These aren't protests. These are crimes that they're doing. They're throwing bricks at cars of the ICE and Border Patrol. They're professional agitators. They should be put in jail. What they're doing in this country is really subversive. And I will say this goes right to the heart of a distinction that I've tried to lay out repeatedly, which is free speech is protected. You can say things that are vile, that are hateful, that are horrible, that we hate. And the First Amendment protects it. Conduct is not protected. When you engage in violence, it is not protected. What Antifa is doing, engaging in violence, engaging in harassment, engaging in threats, that is not protected. And so what I urge Kash Patel, follow the money, go after the money. And look, I believe there's money that is coming from foreign nations. There's money that's coming from Qatar. There's money that's coming from Iran. There may be money coming from communist China. And there's also money coming from the gazillionaire left-wing funders of the Democrat Party, people like George Soros and his entire organization that are funding these radical organizations. And it's one thing to go and prosecute the individual criminals. We should do that. Sure. But if you want to solve the problem, it's why I've introduced the legislation, the Stop Funders Act, because RICO is an incredibly powerful tool to prosecute not just an individual defendant, but a criminal organization. And criminal organizations are usually structured with a hub and spokes. And so following the money is how you get the people writing checks that are sitting in their Manhattan penthouses funding the anti-American, anti-Israel, communist, jihadist agitators that are destroying this country. And so I got to say, I was really encouraged. I've been pressing in the first Trump administration. I pressed for years for the first Trump administration to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization. There was a lot of openness to that argument, but it never succeeded. They never did it. This time, when I pressed on Tuesday, the next day, the president came out and said, we're going to do that. That's exactly the right thing to do. Yeah, it is big. It's going to be really important. It's going to have a huge impact going forward. That may be the best part of all. And of course, you know you're doing something right when the left is losing their mind. They're saying, oh, this is the president trying to silence political organizations. I'm sorry. They're not a political organization. They're a terrorist organization. There's a big difference between a political organization and a terrorist organization. And Antifa has all the markings, as you described it, of a terrorist organization going all the way back to 2016 when you first were calling for this. If you engage in violence, it is not speech. Violence is not speech. And by the way, anyone who commits violence should be prosecuted and go to jail. And that's true whether you're left wing or right wing. I might agree with what you're saying, but if you engage in violence, that is not acceptable. Speech is different from violence. We ought to protect speech and we ought to prosecute violence and put the violent criminals in jail. As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast. And we will see you back here on Monday morning.